On historical recordings

A window into some important reflections for students and performers of classical music. At a group lesson at The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, September 2020, we listened to recordings produced before the advent of mass media such radio broadcasting and the commercial recording industry, which changed the musical landscape dramatically from around 1920 an onwards. (See playlist below) There was general agreement, that compared to today, these old recordings showed some clear tendencies: A good example is “Butterfly”, played by Edvard Grieg himself. As a student, quite frustrated, said: “Why doesn’t he play his piece, in the way, he has written it?”. That led to the realization, that we… Read More

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